Can deep dungeons get a real solo mode? Or allow matched parties?

Before I start, I'll express to anyone reading right now that I absolutely livid while posting this.

FOUR WEEKS. I have been trying to keep a group together for palace of the dead for FOUR WEEKS. I've had probably 16 groups in that time of people who say that they'll follow-up, but they never ever do. They ghost me, only one other person will show up, they'll show up saying they don't want to do it tonight because they are drunk, crap crap crap and I'm really sick of it.

I work full time and go to school full time, Friday and Saturday evenings are literally the only time I can play the game. These people will make promises a week in advance after we get to a high floor, such as floor 170, and then it turns into one of the following:
"Oh, I forgot."
"I don't feel like it tonight."
"I'm drunk lol"
No call, no show
"I'm with another group sorry."
"Can we do it some other time?"

The worst part about this game is having to rely on other people, and its too easy to screw me over just because you felt like being lazy and irresponsible.

Please SE for the love of all that is holy, find a way to make these people more accountable to return groups, I can't stand this anymore. At this point its legitimately easier to SOLO 1-200 in potd than do it with a group because the RNG and overinflated stats of potd 150+ can at least be overcome through luck and hard work. The people barrier just can't be overcome, its completely out of my control.

Please please please pleaaaaaaaaase add a solo-scale mode or allow matched parties in potd. Doing it with a fixed party doesn't prove anything that a matched party wouldn't equally prove. Keeping a party together in this game is impossible for me, and because of that I'm locked out, I feel completely helpless.

/scream into pillow
/endvent

There is a solo scale mode.

There's a pretty decent sized discord with people that run potd/hoh extremely often, sadly I don't have the link right now but I believe it's advertised in the balance discord. People that bail are reported and kicked so it's a group of consistent non flaky people.

If you're on aether (I'm not good at knowing which server is on which data center, sorry) I run potd to floor to 200 often so you're more than welcome to message me when you're free.

SE has sort of this thing where they let one aspect of content dominate and even cripple the whole. Like the fixed party thing for the challenge floors, or the focus on Feast over all for PvP. They should just let it be matched parties; it can't hurt the content to be able to do floors with randoms even if wiping is higher. I mean, you can even do all of savage in raid finder, if people used it.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

SE has sort of this thing where they let one aspect of content dominate and even cripple the whole. Like the fixed party thing for the challenge floors, or the focus on Feast over all for PvP. They should just let it be matched parties; it can't hurt the content to be able to do floors with randoms even if wiping is higher. I mean, you can even do all of savage in raid finder, if people used it.

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Good luck going through 150+ without a healthy stock of pomanders. Those chimeras are due for a snack.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

SE has sort of this thing where they let one aspect of content dominate and even cripple the whole. Like the fixed party thing for the challenge floors, or the focus on Feast over all for PvP. They should just let it be matched parties; it can't hurt the content to be able to do floors with randoms even if wiping is higher. I mean, you can even do all of savage in raid finder, if people used it.

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Honestly many savage and ex fights are easier than the last 20 to 30 floors of POTD and HoH. Having completed both I can tell you the chances of a pug finishing them is extremely low. One mistake can very easily lead to a wipe. The margin for error is tiny.

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Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

Good luck going through 150+ without a healthy stock of pomanders. Those chimeras are due for a snack.

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Yea forget about doing the last 20 to 30 floors without a hefty bundle of pomanders. Matched parties won't work for those floors based on that alone.

Putting together a decent group for HoH or PoTD require lot of time and a good number of member replacements.

And when you find people good at it, befriend them immediately, they are rare.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Putting together a decent group for HoH or PoTD require lot of time and a good number of member replacements.

And when you find people good at it, befriend them immediately, they are rare.

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Or it just needs an FC or a FL..

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Honestly many savage and ex fights are easier than the last 20 to 30 floors of POTD and HoH. Having completed both I can tell you the chances of a pug finishing them is extremely low. One mistake can very easily lead to a wipe. The margin for error is tiny.

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If it's a different kind of difficulty though, not entirely based on rotations and uptime. Some people on the other hand might find it easier. But what's the point even if they can't? At least with matched you can try and practice the floors much more, now you run into the problems the op states.

I think the biggest culprit is just that you have to work through 100 floors of fluff every time you restart. If you didn't have to start at 51F and could just start at 101F after having cleared 100F once, you'd shave a lot of time and frustration off right there. Probably not enough to fully overcome the problem of unreliable random people, but it would help.

FC and friends are generally the way to go, though. Have made multiple climbs with a couple different combinations, and we've just taken it slowly. At least with friends you can be more confident that even if something comes up and plans fall through one day/week, you can just get together the next day/week and carry on then.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

If it's a different kind of difficulty though, not entirely based on rotations and uptime. Some people on the other hand might find it easier. But what's the point even if they can't? At least with matched you can try and practice the floors much more, now you run into the problems the op states.

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You are excatly right about that: Its a different kind of difficulty - and it is one that doesnt require you to know your rotation perfectly or study the pattern of the boss in question.
PotD/HoH require you to actually pay attention. To watch out where you're going, judge the situation you're in, have the foresight to peak into the next room and see that there are two patrols coming and to pull one of them while slowly backing away. To save your pomanders for situations that are actually critical - and specially for those where they're crucial. I wouldnt want to go into the higher floors of PotD/HoH without a bag full of pomanders, which is excatly what you'd be doing if you'd queue for it via DF. And even if they gave you a certain amount of pomanders or something like that, you'd still have to deal with the idiot who burns everyone of them on 91, yelling "YOLO!" and running straight into the first room while stepping on a pull-trap.
Non of that is really something you can "practise" though, like you can practise your rotation or the pattern of a boss.
Savage raids and EX-primals have a "practise difficulty" - PotD has a "pay real attention and re-act"-difficulty.

PotD-difficulty is much, much more about coordinating on the fly, paying attention and watching out what the mobs and your fellow party-members are doing than savage is.
And mistakes are more severly punished. A wipe in a raid will cost you 10 minutes tops. Its frustrating when it happens at 2%, but its 10 minutes lost.
A wipe on floor 174 costs you what? A coupld of hours?
And people will wipe in DF-matched parties. And they will complain.

People saying "Oh, I just want to see those higher floors, at least give me a chance to do that!" arent perfectly honest - at least thats what I believe. Because I dont believe, that they're really be fine with just "seeing" the higher floors, they do wanna beat PotD. They dont want to see just the higher floors, they want to see the highest floor.
And "practise" wont help you in PotD when you get a matched party that wipes you because someone wasnt careful and stepped on a trap. What did you practise there? "Dont step on traps"?

To preserve the difficulty of PotD - that "one life"-thing is part of it - matched parties arent an option.

I know that finding relaible people for this isnt easy and my personal suggestion would be to convince friends or FC-mates to go in with you - not random people from the street, because they might bail. And yes, that sucks.
But it would also suck to have your save ruined by some random guy somewhere down the line. Or to not be able to progress because you cant communicate with your party or are lacking the needed pomanders - or a healer or tank for the higher floors, because they kinda require one.
We asked for some challenging content to do with our friends or in smaller groups at least and thats what we've got - and I'm happy we did! Please dont take this away or nerf it, just to make it DF-able...
Find people that are comited to you first, and then make them comit to the content!

I agree, having to rely on other people, this absolute nonsense in a massively multiplayer game XD

Irony aside, when players did suddenly quit my team when reaching high floors, it was each time after getting the black pegasus mount. They were after that from the start, and not completing the whole dungeon. Of course, they didn't say anything of it beforehand. Allowing matched parties will not get rid of this kind of people.

As for making a solo friendly version, that would only cause another forum huge uproar where the community will bash SE for making fun of players that already did solo it the hard way. Or would need to have different loot, achievements and rankings than the normal version, but then you would still feeling frustrated to not have completed the real thing.

In the end, your best bet is still to try to find really reliable players, with some of the hints who were given to you.

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Originally Posted by Kleeya

-snip-

As for making a solo friendly version, that would only cause another forum huge uproar where the community will bash SE for making fun of players that already did solo it the hard way. Or would need to have different loot, achievements and rankings than the normal version, but then you would still feeling frustrated to not have completed the real thing.

-snip-

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I'm sure they will eventually make it easier somehow and without doing any of that.

See all raid content from ARR and HW which can now be unsync'd. Perhaps that will even be the direct solution, PotD unsync'd... and for those that still want the OG challenge, they can just do it sync'd instead. However, I suppose for the sake of the sacred scoreboard, unsync option should disable high score reports.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

If it's a different kind of difficulty though, not entirely based on rotations and uptime. Some people on the other hand might find it easier. But what's the point even if they can't? At least with matched you can try and practice the floors much more, now you run into the problems the op states.

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It's precisely because it's a different type of difficulty that it can be harder than savage. You need -constant- coordination as many aspects of HoH and POTD are randomised. You can't plan for everything like you can in raids. You need to act FAST if something goes wrong. You need to be super on point with pomander use. Mistiming the use of one pomander can easily cause a wipe. Using pomanders too liberally can doom you to a wipe later. You need to make constant judgement calls on whether you should use a pomander now or risk pushing through without it so you can use it later. Never mind all the mobs that have plenty of one-shot mechanics that need perfect pulling and dodging. In many cases pulling more than one mob is a guaranteed wipe.

Considering how pugs often run into issues on far easier content, the likelihood of achieving the level of coordination needed for the last 30 floors with a pug is insanely small.

I think if you're unable to find good reliable people who match your schedule and level of commitment then it's best to forget about the content and save yourself the stress. I mostly just stick to casual content that can be pug because statics so often lead to stress and drama. It's nice to be able to clear higher stuff but only if there are good friends who don't let you down. Maybe in the future you will make some good friends with same schedule and goals, then can try dungeon again.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

If it's a different kind of difficulty though, not entirely based on rotations and uptime. Some people on the other hand might find it easier. But what's the point even if they can't? At least with matched you can try and practice the floors much more, now you run into the problems the op states.

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HoH or PotD challenge floors matchmade = people will scream for hard nerfes since they'll loose every pomander and can't get it done.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I think if you're unable to find good reliable people who match your schedule and level of commitment then it's best to forget about the content and save yourself the stress. I mostly just stick to casual content that can be pug because statics so often lead to stress and drama. It's nice to be able to clear higher stuff but only if there are good friends who don't let you down. Maybe in the future you will make some good friends with same schedule and goals, then can try dungeon again.

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i sometimes think its how much people expect.. im in a group of 4 thats doing hoh at the moment and we're not terribly fast upto 80 if i recall. but its done on a pretty much on the basis of when we all happen to be on and have an hour to spare sort of thing.. if we do it for an hour or 3 hours or just 30 minutes to clear 10 floors and then go do something else its no issue to us.

a lot of the issues i see with people putting potd or hoh in pfs and complaining they cant find people is because they literally expect to spend a full night doing it. potd literally every pf you saw was people wanting to go 51-200 in a single session and then complaining that noone wanted to do that..

kinda the same with savage statics see many people saying its hard to find members. of course it is when you wanna grind the same thing 5 hours a night 4 nights a week.....

Honestly I think that SE simply needs to make PotD / HoH DF'able. It wouldn't be difficult for match groups to start with certain 'base' Pomander counts above a certain floor level, so as to make it somewhat doable.

Personally I love the idea of fixed parties, but FFXIV just isn't built for it. Unlike FFXI, where fixed parties were a necessity to do... well, more or less anything outside of basic leveling, in XIV, they're almost never needed. End-game raiding and these Deep Dungeons, maybe Rathalos EX. That's about it. As a result, the average player simply doesn't have the right mindset for static parties. You can't take a casual game that's designed for people to play at their convenience 99% of the time, and then expect them to be highly accountable to others for the remaining 1%.

With Savage and Ultimate fights and such, it's arguable that there's simply no replacing the static element there. Those fights have a style of difficulty where you have to learn as a group to succeed for the most part. The Deep Dungeons, though? There's nothing special for that beyond being highly attentive and tactical in how you engage groups. People can pull that off in a matched group, and so SE should allow for it. Matched groups should only be restricted when absolutely necessary.

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Originally Posted by Kirsten_Rev

wouldn't be difficult for match groups to start with certain 'base' Pomander counts above a certain floor level, so as to make it somewhat doable.
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Then that's not fair to the pre mades because what pomanders you get is random so to make sure you're stocked up you have to go through x floors and kill x mobs. Being able to start and just get handed the things you need to succeed is a slap in the face.

SE shouldn't have to nerf certain stuff because the community isn't aware it's playing a MMO. I work full time and I manage to run PoTD to 200 several times a week.

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Originally Posted by kamikrazy

Before I start, I'll express to anyone reading right now that I absolutely livid while posting this.

FOUR WEEKS. I have been trying to keep a group together for palace of the dead for FOUR WEEKS. I've had probably 16 groups in that time of people who say that they'll follow-up, but they never ever do. They ghost me, only one other person will show up, they'll show up saying they don't want to do it tonight because they are drunk, crap crap crap and I'm really sick of it.

I work full time and go to school full time, Friday and Saturday evenings are literally the only time I can play the game. These people will make promises a week in advance after we get to a high floor, such as floor 170, and then it turns into one of the following:
"Oh, I forgot."
"I don't feel like it tonight."
"I'm drunk lol"
No call, no show
"I'm with another group sorry."
"Can we do it some other time?"

The worst part about this game is having to rely on other people, and its too easy to screw me over just because you felt like being lazy and irresponsible.

Please SE for the love of all that is holy, find a way to make these people more accountable to return groups, I can't stand this anymore. At this point its legitimately easier to SOLO 1-200 in potd than do it with a group because the RNG and overinflated stats of potd 150+ can at least be overcome through luck and hard work. The people barrier just can't be overcome, its completely out of my control.

Please please please pleaaaaaaaaase add a solo-scale mode or allow matched parties in potd. Doing it with a fixed party doesn't prove anything that a matched party wouldn't equally prove. Keeping a party together in this game is impossible for me, and because of that I'm locked out, I feel completely helpless.

/scream into pillow
/endvent

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You can easily duo potd so no need to get four people. A tank and a healer are enough.

I mean. No one stops you from trying to reach 200 solo.

That's what I'm doing (trying) instead of looking for a static group.

I feel for you.

I, too, tried to get a group together for POTD and I could never find a reliable team to do it with. So many players in this game are flaky.

I got lucky with HOH and managed to find people to do it with - but only once. I could solo it, though that's too much effort and after getting to floor 91 and dying, I haven't felt the urge to try again.